Chapter VII.
The blessed teacher continues in the same place and shows that the greedy should do good with their possessions, but they prefer to spend their money on building; and they delight more in the high price of goods than in the abundance of profits: nevertheless, he teaches them where they can safely hide their fruits.
33. The hope of the greedy has been defeated. The old granaries are bursting with new crops. 'I had less,' he says, 'and I saved in vain: more has been born, and to whom shall I gather it?' While I pursue the gains of prices, I have lost the use of benefits. How many souls of the poor could I have saved with the grain of the previous year? These prices, which are not valued by money but by thanks, delighted me more, and I will imitate the holy Joseph in preaching of humanity: with a loud voice I will cry out: 'Come, poor ones, eat my bread, spread out your lap, receive the grain.' Fertility should be the abundance of the rich, the abundance of the whole world, the fertility of all. But you do not say this, rather you say: I will destroy my storehouses. You destroy them rightly, from which no poor person burdened comes back. Storehouses are receptacles of injustice, not aids of compassion. He destroys rightly who does not know how to build wisely. The rich person destroys his own, who does not know eternal things: he destroys storehouses, who does not know how to divide his own grain, but to close them.
34. And I will do greater things, he says. Unfortunate, either that you distribute it to the poor, or that you spend it for the expense of building. While you avoid the grace of generosity, you incur the losses of construction.
35. And he added: I will gather all that is born to me, and I will say to my soul: Soul, you have many goods. The miser is always satisfied with the abundance of his profits, while he calculates the cheapness of his nourishment. For the fertility of all things is profitable to him, but the barrenness of the land is profitable to the greedy. He delights more in the exorbitance of prices than in the abundance of possessions; and he prefers to have what he alone possesses, rather than what he sells with others. See him fearing that the heap of grain will overflow, that the overflowing barns will pour into the poor, and that the opportunity of some good will be acquired by the needy. The rich man claims the lands for himself alone, not because he wants to use them, but to deny them to others.
36. 'You have many good things,' he says. The greedy person does not know how to speak of good things, unless they are profitable. But I agree with him, that things which are monetary are called good. So why do you make evil out of good things, when you should make good out of evil things? For it is written: Make friends for yourselves with the dishonest wealth (Luke 16:9). Therefore, to those who know how to use it, things are good; to those who do not know how to use it, they are rightly evil. He scattered, he gave to the poor, his justice remains forever (Psalm 112:9). What is better than this? It is good if you are generous to the poor, in which you establish yourself as a debtor to God through a certain devotion of piety. It is good if you open the storehouses of your justice, so that you may be the bread of the poor, the life of the needy, the eyes of the blind, the father of orphaned children.
37. You have the means to do it, what do you fear? I address you in your own voice. You have many good things stored up for many years, you can abound both for yourself and for others. You have public abundance, why do you destroy your own granaries? I show you where you can better preserve your grain, where you can protect it well, so that thieves cannot take it from you. Include it in the hearts of the poor, where no throat can consume it, no old age corrupt it. You have storehouses, the bosoms of the destitute: you have storehouses, the houses of widows: you have storehouses, the mouths of infants, so that it can be said to you: 'Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have perfected praise' (Psalm 8:2). These are the storehouses that will last forever; those granaries that future fertility will not destroy. For what will you do again if you are born more in the following year? So you will destroy again those things that you now prepare, and you will make greater ones. For God gives you fertility, so that he may either overcome or condemn your greed; therefore, you cannot have an excuse: on the contrary, you keep for yourself what he wanted to be born to many through you, indeed you even take it away from yourself; for you would keep it more for yourself if you distributed it to others. For indeed, the fruits of gifts return to those who have given them, and the grace of generosity comes back to the giver. Finally, it is written: Sow for yourselves in righteousness (Hosea X, 12). Be a spiritual farmer, sow what is beneficial to you. A good sowing in the hearts of widows. If the earth yields to you more abundant fruits than what you have received, how much more will the reward of mercy multiply the things you have given!